Dee Daniels is featuring a stellar, all-star band at Smoke Friday, Feb 14th and Saturday, Feb 15th, 2014. The weekend at Smoke is celebrating a CD Release Party for “State Of The Art”, her debut on Criss Cross Jazz Records. “State Of The Art” is also the first vocalist-led album for the famous Criss Cross Jazz Records label, who have been releasing recordings for over three decades. The band features vocalist, Dee Daniels, with Antonio Hart on saxophone, Paul Beaudry on bass, Alvester Garnett on drums, and Cyrus Chestnut on piano for Friday night (Feb. 14th) and Helen Sung on piano for Saturday night (Feb. 15th).

Dee Daniels is world-renown for telling stories with her songs along with her amazing voice and vocal range. The new release “State Of The Art” features her ensemble’s interpretation and arrangements of 12 jazz standards. This weekend’s performance will feature mostly songs from the new CD but will also highlight a few others from previous releases.

Paul Beaudry and Pathways will be returning to The Kitano on Feb 7th, 2013 with some new music and arrangements of jazz inspired by popular and folk songs of the Americas and South and Central Asia. As “your jazz passport to the world” Pathways will play their version of songs they’ve experienced on the road as U.S. State Dept cultural ambassadors or songs of internationally acclaimed composers not well known in the U.S. Featuring music from Brazil, Cuba, Argentina, Suriname, Venezuela, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and many others it will be a unique, unforgettable and global musical journey.

We’re doing a free concert at 6:30pm at Waterfront Park, Dobbs Ferry, NY this Wednesday night as a part of Jazz Forum Arts’ 13th Annual Dobbs Ferry Summer Music Series. We’ll be featuring music from our latest CD “Americas” as well as a few from our self-titled debut “Paul Beaudry & Pathways”. We had a successful tour in Venezuela recently and added a new song from there “Alma Llanera” to our repertoire.

Here’s a recent review that just came in of “Americas” from the Critical Jazz blog.

Jacques Schwarz-Bart will be joining us again on tenor sax along with myself, Tony Jefferson on drums and vocal, and Bennett Paster on piano.

Well what do you know I’m turning 40 this week. It’s been a long up and down road but I can’t think of a better way of celebrating than to play some of the greatest music in the world, with some of the greatest musicians in the world, at one of the greatest places in the world, celebrating with some of the greatest people and my favorite friends in the world. May the Creator bless everyone and let’s continue working toward and hoping for a brighter future for all. In the meantime we can stop and celebrate the journey.

Come by even if it’s just for a moment and be a part of the celebration (and bring a camera). Here’s the info:

Paul Beaudry & Pathways will be releasing their second CD Americas on May 17th at the Kitano. Released by the Soundkeeper Recordings label the music features some of the songs we heard and played on our 2010 Rhythm Road tour to Trinidad & Tobago, Suriname, Nicaragua and Honduras as well as songs from four other countries in the Caribbean and South America. Songs included are: “Every Time Ah Pass” (Trinidad), “Maria” (Suriname), “Nicaragua Nicaraguita” (Nicaragua), “El Bananero (The Banana Vendor)” (Honduras), “D’leau” (Haiti), “El Panuelo De Pepa” (Cuba), “Zamba Alegre” (Argentina), “O Que E Amar” (Brazil) and lastly “Harmonia Mundi” (USA) written by our pianist, Bennett Paster. Many of the songs are popular folk tunes but played using our original arrangements and keeping their Caribbean or South American flavor.

The music we play on May 17th will feature mostly songs from the new Americas CD but we’ll also play a few from our first release (Paul Beaudry & Pathways) and some we learned from our latest tour to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Bangladesh and India. It will be a mixed bag of music and definitely a night to remember! Also we’ll be signing CDs and it will be the first opportunity to get one in person.

Sets are at 8pm and 10pm and the address is The Kitano, 66 Park Ave (at East 38th St), New York, NY 10016 featuring their new jazz room! There is a $10 cover and a $15 food/drink minimum per person per set. Come party with us, this release has been highly anticipated internationally since our return from our 2010 Latin American tour.

The quartet, Pathways, recorded a new CD for the Soundkeeper label last spring called “Americas”. It will be released in May of 2012. It will feature many of the tunes we learned on the road from the Latin America tour last year and our jazz arrangements of a few more Caribbean and South American songs. More on that as it comes closer.

The Kickstarter CD fundraising campaign for the ‘Paul Beaudry & Adam Rafferty – New Tomorrows’ project was successful. It looks like that CD will be ready for release by the summer of 2012. By that time it will have been 4 years in the making, that project started in 2008.

My jazz quartet, Paul Beaudry & Pathways, recently completed a Rhythm Road: American Music Abroad tour to Central Asia. In October 2011 we performed and gave educational workshops in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Bangladesh and India. I’ll be updating my blog soon and finally moving my all my blog posts to this site!